Arson Is Hinted in Costly Fire at Avocado Firm

An intense, fast-moving blaze that destroyed a warehouse at the Henry Avocado Co., one of San Diego County’s largest firms for growing and packing avocados, may have resulted from arson, investigators said Wednesday.

The Escondido fire, which began about 7:40 p.m. Tuesday, caused an estimated $200,000 damage and gutted a 7,500-square-foot metal-frame building that housed a lime-packing house and management headquarters.

About 20 firefighters battled the blaze 90 minutes before it was brought under control. The plant is at 2355 E. Lincoln Ave.

Escondido Assistant Fire Chief Steve Gates said arson is suspected because of the intensity of the heat produced and the quick-moving nature of the fire.

“That is the tack we are taking right now,” Gates said. “The building was totally consumed by the time we arrived, and it only took us three minutes to get there.

“Looking at the material in the building and because most of the building was metal, we would not assume that the fire would move so quickly and become so intense without some outside element being added.”

Gates estimated that the fire produced heat approaching 1,800 degrees. The intense heat caused areas of the concrete floor of the building to explode, creating pockmarks as big as 10 feet deep and 4 feet wide, Gates said.

He gave no other details.

Several thousand limes were destroyed in the fire, but most of the loss was to equipment and packing material stored in the building, co-owner Gil Henry said, adding that the building stored refrigeration equipment, forklifts, coal-storage bins and several three-wheel vehicles. The packing house was capable of processing about 7 million pounds of limes a week, but processing could resume today in another building, Henry said.

The fire knocked out electricity to one of the avocado storage sites, and about 90,000 pounds of the fruit had to be shipped to the company’s Fallbrook processing plant late Tuesday, co-owner Warren Henry said.

Gil Henry said that other processing plants at the Escondido site are being run on rented generators to keep fruit from spoiling and that the fire will not create a major disruption.

“We plan to rebuild the destroyed plant as soon as possible,” Gil Henry said. “But right now it is just very inconvenient.”

The Henry Avocado Co., which has been in the Henry family since 1925, owns about 4,000 acres of avocados and about 100 acres of limes in North County.